Certain vehicles, such as construction vehicles (e.g., loaders, bulldozers, excavators, etc.), agricultural vehicles (e.g., harvesters, combines, tractors, etc.) forestry vehicles (e.g., feller-bunchers, tree chippers, knuckleboom loaders, etc.) and military vehicles (e.g., combat engineering vehicles (CEVs), etc.) to name a few, may be equipped with elastomeric endless tracks which enhance their traction and floatation on soft, slippery and/or uneven grounds (e.g., soil, mud, sand, ice, snow, etc.) on which they operate.
In some cases, an elastomeric endless track may include certain parts that are significantly more voluminous than other parts. For example, the elastomeric endless track may include guide/drive projections (sometimes referred to as “guide/drive lugs”) on its inner side or traction projections (sometimes referred to as “tread members”) on its outer side that are thicker in one or more directions than its main body (sometimes referred to as a “carcass”). In such cases, when the endless elastomeric track undergoes a curing process during manufacturing, some of its elastomeric material can be undesirably undercured or overcured, for instance, by falling short of reaching a desired curing temperature in a given period of time, reaching an undesirably high temperature in a given period of time, and/or remaining at a high temperature for too long a period of time. In turn, this may have detrimental effects on properties and performance characteristics of the elastomeric endless track in its final state and/or may create inefficiencies in its manufacturing.
For these and other reasons, there is a need to improve elastomeric endless tracks for traction of vehicles.